If what follows looks familiar to you, it’s because this is my post from last year when Uranus went direct. Uranus goes direct every year, so the post continues to be useful, but the dates will be slightly different every year.
Uranus has spent the last few months (since July 6) traveling backwards. Today he turns his face forward and re-covers the same ground. Why should it matter to you? If he’s passing through a zone where you have a planet in your natal chart, he’s bringing you shocking new ideas that can turn your head around. And it’s still in progress.
This Is A Pivotal Day
If you are one of the millions of people having a Uranus transit this year, today may be pivotal for you. Around July 6, you came to realize that some area of your life was in a chaotic uproar. This was the chaos or breakdown that leads to breakthrough, although it probably didn’t look like that at the time. Since then, you’ve been re-evaluating that area. It might feel like a puzzle, the pieces of which have been thrown up into the air, forcing you to reassemble it entirely from the beginning. And when you’re done, chances are it will not look like it did before. Not in the least.
The puzzle is still in progress and now you’re waiting for the right moment to act. That moment is not today, but today (Dec 5, 2010) is when the seed may be planted that will lead to the right moment happening in the next few months. This day is pivotal in the process of you arriving at a whole new perspective in which so much more is possible than ever before.
Today (and I mean this loosely—it may happen as soon as 2 days before or as late as 2 days after today) is pivotal. Today may be the day you realize your internal quest for understanding is over. You’ve heard the message the universe is sending to you and you’re almost ready to act on what you’ve learned. You can now gather yourself to take that action sometime in the next few months (between now and March of 2011).
“What is a Uranus transit like . . .”
Uranus is archetype of the Revolutionary and he brings a shift in paradigm. A paradigm shift is a state-based shift, where enough momentum has been built up to cause a cascade into a new state, fundamentally different from the old one. Uranus’ purpose is to present a new way of thinking about something, so new and so radical that everything that previously existed inside that way of thinking is now reframed and thus altered by its new context. So the ways in which you were like a fish in water, taking the water for granted, will change because the very water you live in has changed. Uranus’s paradigm shift is intellectual in nature—a shift to a new perspective where the old way of thinking is rendered irrelevant in the new context. My favorite example is the way people used to think the world was flat and they shifted to thinking the world is round. You and I may never travel all the way around the globe we live on, yet every aspect of our lives is different because we know the world is round, not flat.
“. . . and how do I know when I’m having one?”
First of all, you know by feel. If what I’ve described resonates for you, it’s likely you’re having a Uranus transit. (If it resonates, but only a little, you may be having a transit, but by a planet other than Uranus.) A Uranus transit has a particular sensation of agitation and unrest associated with it. There’s disruption and disarray in some area of your life. You feel that something has to change and you feel unsettled while you’re figuring it out. Maybe a new, startling idea has struck you like lightening and your point of view has already begun to shift and you are coping with all the fallout from that.
You can find out whether you’re having a Uranus transit by peeking at your chart. This year Uranus is covering the space from 26 degrees of Pisces to 0 degrees of Aries. This will affect you if you have any planet in the space from 26 to 29 degrees of any of the four Mutable signs (Pisces, Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius) OR in 0 degrees of any of the four Cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn).
If you don’t have your chart, or don’t know how to read your chart, you might want to order your own personal Astrology Chart Decoder. This is a special tool I’ve invented that puts your chart’s details into English, instead of astrology symbols. Your Decoder tells you where every planet in your chart is located: the sign it’s in, the house it’s in and the exact degree it occupies. When you’ve got your Decoder in front of you, check to see if you have anything at all in 26, 27, 28, or 29 degrees of Pisces Gemini, Virgo or Sagittarius OR in 0 degrees of Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn. If you do, you are definitely having a Uranus transit this year. And knowing that gives you a chance to understand the major shift that you’re involved in and to see the usefulness of the chaos, instead of feeling overwhelmed by it.
“How long does it last?”
A Uranus transit will typically last for 9 months to 1-1½ years. Today is just one part of it, a pivotal day in its flow. The timing of your transit will be personal to you. It takes an astrologer to look it up—it’s not something I can just tell you in a blogpost. In an astrology reading you can find out the timing of it and how to move through it consciously, instead of spending this valuable time agitated and disturbed. You can also find out which part of you (i.e. planet in your chart) is being affected by this paradigm shift. Is it Relationships (Venus)? Career (Saturn)? Home (Moon)? Or it could be something more subtle.
“What do I do now?”
Take a close look at the area of your life that’s changing. Why do you feel so agitated there? Is there some aspect of your life that doesn’t fit the way it used to? You may have to let go of some old ways of thinking before all this is done.
Sometimes a Uranian paradigm shift is launched by the arrival of a new, startling idea. It’s startling because it doesn’t fit into your old ways of thinking and therefore it makes you see ways you’d gotten stuck in thought-patterns. It shows up the flaws in those thought-patterns as if to say, “You weren’t prepared for me, were you? I’m a truly new idea and you’ll have to make room for me now.” Everything has to change to accommodate the new idea but because the system itself has to change, this results in a cascade of changes that will not only make room for the new idea but also make possible a whole host of new, exciting ideas, thoughts, perspectives and approaches that you couldn’t ever have seen from the old point of view. Holy ripple effect, Batman! This can be a shocking experience. And it massively widens your vistas.
Sometime Uranus transits are experienced by Uranian (i.e. Aquarius) types in different ways than other types experience them. For most people, a Uranus transit is a time of breaking out, rebelling and going in a new radical direction. But a Uranian may already be living that radical way, so for them sometimes the most radical thing they can do is to go conservative. Sometimes that’s the only new territory left. So if you’re already a rebel in the area where Uranus is influencing you, this transit may (paradoxically) stabilize you. It’s like of like how ADD people need to take a stimulant (Ritalin, etc.) to calm down their already hyperactive brain. (ADD is a Uranian condition, linked to the short attention span that seems necessary and appropriate for coping with the Aquarian Age of Technology.)
Uranus’ Gift
Uranus’ gift is that you come out the other side of this change with a whole new way of thinking about something. That new way of thinking yields ideas and approaches that were not possible before, that didn’t exist in the old paradigm. Your world is about to expand into new dimensions that were not foreseeable before. You are facing a singularity. After this, everything changes. Are you ready?
When it’s over, it’s over
After this transit ends, your period of paradigm shift will be over. It’s quite possible you’ll have another transit like this in a different area of your life in the next few years (it’s likely in fact), but this one will have passed. If this period is frustrating to you, be at ease, because it will end, and soon (between now and March). But also, and more importantly, take advantage. Use this shift while it’s happening. It doesn’t happen every day.
